By Nicole Cheoh

HMC Alumni has always been giving back to HMC by organizing Inspirational Hour. This time around, Cheah Kar Fei, the first HMC alumni to be on TEDx stage, presented us with a talk titled, “What gets you here, won’t get you there” on Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at CLTG1, Subang 2 campus. He has been coaching for 10 years and his ultimate goal is to help young professionals pursue their goals as well as boosting their confidence.  He is the founder and performance coach of Life Redesigned as well as the lead coach and head of learning & culture at Mindvalley.

Kar Fei started of his talk by giving us an insight of his foundation life in HMC. To everyone’s disbelief, he was not a brilliant student. Besides, he did not study Psychology to become a coach.  He was nothing but a boy with a passion to succeed in life while helping others succeed at the same time.   “Live as if you are going to die today; Learn as if you are going to live forever.”  He further reinforced that many students tend to feel lost when they embark on their journey into college or university life. In fact, some students do not have a definite answer to the degree that they are planning to take in the future. Some common reasons include economic reasons, parent’s grant, employment rate, potential learning, passion, so on and forth. This also bring us to the question: “Are we studying for the sake of getting a job?” To be frank, most of the job exist right now did not exist in the past 10 years. Therefore, we must find our passion, also known as our purpose for life. Kar Fei also states that sacrifice must be done to achieve our goals or passion as it is not all fairytales. What we have studied are mainly theories that can be learnt. On the other hand, knowledge, experience and confidence are the key elements to a major transformation.  With the current competition in the workplace, students must work harder and enhance their critical thinking skills to be more employable.

As stated earlier, passion is not a fairytale. Kar Fei introduced a concept called Ikigai that was originated in Japan that helps enhance our work, life and self-worthiness. It is a formula for happiness and the meaning of life. He encouraged us to practice this formula and at the same time, he also provided us a list of questions to ask ourselves during the process of developing our passion. It is important to have regular checkpoints and reviews from time to time to ensure that we are on the right track. One of the questions that was brought to my attention was “What are you willing to do to live your passion?”  To me, this question was very relevant because we fall into traps easily. We have the tendency to make unrealistic plans without being prepared to sacrifice or make a change. Are we willing to give up on certain things to fully embrace our passion? During his time, Kar Fei decided to focus on building himself by volunteering in NGOs and attending sales seminar. Along the way, he got shot down from his friends as his social time was close to zero. He stated that it was devastating to know that his friends decided to not associate with him, but he knew that sacrifices must be made and in time, his dreams will come true.

The third segment of his talk was Success. In his point of view, Success is equivalent to fulfillment and happiness. Success is not measurable by money and it can be segmented into different forms. He once started a business with his partner and it was smooth sailing. However, they were rejected by clients and they felt defeated. It was impossible for them to not question themselves.  As time passes, Kar Fei eventually had to close his company and get back into employment.  What was it like for him to deal with so many obstacles at such a young age? His answer to this question was enlightening. “We are all running our own marathons and we shall not compare ourselves with others but compare ourselves from yesterday.” There are many ways to achieve our passion and there are more ways to become a successful person. Clarity is power. Being able to spend more time with our loved ones, have an energizing career and a healthy mental image as well as physical health is a major success. At the end of the day, one can only be successful when they feel self-fulfilled and happy. He ended his talk with a motto – “Live life by design, not by default.” It was a rather short talk, but it was not short of inspiration.